Eva Mendes Says the Decision to Be a Stay-at-home Mom Was a ‘No-brainer’

Longtime couple Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling have been notoriously cagey about their private lives despite the Barbie actor’s ubiquitous presence on red carpets during the film’s recent Oscars campaign. But the actress recently opened up about her and Gosling’s philosophies around parenting and her current lifestyle as a mother of two in an interview with the Today show on Tuesday.

While the actors share 9-year-old Esmeralda and 7-year-old Amada, Mendes said she was happy to let her acting career take a back seat to her responsibilities as a mother — and, indirectly, to Gosling’s ambitions. In recalling her decision to stay at home with her kids, the 50-year-old said it had been a no-brainer to sacrifice acting gigs that would have required her to travel in favor of spending vital time with her children. Mendes clarified that she “pretty much stopped acting” after starring alongside Gosling in the 2012 film The Place Beyond the Pines.

“It was almost just like a nonverbal agreement that it was like, Okay, he’s going to work, and I’m going to work. I’m just going to work here,” Mendes said of her caretaking. “I still worked. I just didn’t act because acting takes you on locations, it takes you away.”

“I’m so lucky to have this time with my children,” she added.

Two anonymous sources previously claimed the couple are “hands-on parents” and don’t have nannies in a 2020 Us Weekly report. Speaking with Today, Mendes seemed happy to take on additional duties at home so Gosling can focus on film-related promotional work, including one Ken-ergized Oscars performance earlier this month. On Instagram following the ceremony, Mendes posted a photo of herself in Ken’s bedazzled pink blazer, writing, “You took Ken all the way to the Oscar’s, RG. Now come home, we need to put the kids to bed.” For Mendes’s sake, here’s hoping Gosling isn’t just Ken but a doting father, too.